A liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink, a liquid pressure pattern-transferring film, a liquid pressure pattern-transferred article and a method of transferring a print pattern on an objective body under a liquid pressure
This invention pertains to a liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink including an alkyd resin as a fundamental ingredient used for transferring and printing appropriate print patterns such as wood grain patterns, marble patterns or other patterns by using a liquid pressure on an objective article (a body to which the print pattern is to be transferred) having a three-dimensional surface such as a curved surface or the like. Furthermore, this invention pertains to a pattern-transferring film having a print pattern printed thereon by the liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink, a liquid pressure pattern-transferred article having a predetermined print pattern transferred from the pattern-transferring film by using a liquid pressure and a method of transferring a print pattern on the objective article by using the pattern-transferring film.
A method of transferring onto an objective body or article (a body to which a print pattern is to be transferred) by using a liquid pressure a print pattern on a pattern-transferring film floated on a liquid surface has been used for printing the print pattern on the objective body having a three-dimensional surface such as a curved surface and so on. The liquid to be used may be typically water and may be a liquid other than the water if it has no trouble for the liquid pressure pattern-transferring operation.
This liquid pressure pattern-transferring method is one in which a liquid-soluble or liquid-swelling pattern-transferring film having a predetermined print pattern of no liquid solution provided thereon is floated on a surface of a liquid flowing within a transferring bath and is made swelled by the liquid and then the objective body is immersed into the liquid within the transferring bath in a manner faced to the pattern-transferring film and has the print pattern transferred from the pattern-transferring film by using a liquid pressure.
The print pattern has a design provided as a collective form of dots on the pattern-transferring film by a gravure printing method. If the print pattern thus provided on the pattern-transferring film is in a dry state, then it is required to restore an adhesive property necessary for the pattern-transferring operation by returning from the dry state to an activated state by using an activator composite before it is transferred on the objective body.
In this case, the print pattern is required to have such an extensibility as allows the print pattern to be closely adhered to the objective body along the surface thereof. If a part of the ink of the print pattern is too much dissolved, the design pattern transferred and formed on the objective body tends to be destroyed. Reversely if a part of the printing ink is insufficiently dissolved, the print pattern will be transferred while a lump of ink remains. If the whole ink is excessively dissolved, then an arrangement of ink dots will be broken so that the transferred design pattern will be made blurred. Thus, such phenomena have to be prevented. In the description, the two former phenomena will be referred to as xe2x80x9ca disarrangement of the transferred patternxe2x80x9d while the last phenomenon will be referred to as xe2x80x9ca blur of the transferred patternxe2x80x9d.
In general, the liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink comprises a resin ingredient serving as a binder of ink and being to become a print coat base layer, a pigment to take charge of color of the ink and a plasticizer to adjust a hardness of the resin when the ink is swelled or dried.
In a liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink of the prior art including an alkyd resin as a fundamental component, the resin ingredient is composed of a short-oil alkyd resin of 2 to 15 weight % having a nitrocellulose of 3 to 20 weight % added thereto, the plasticizer is composed of a dibutyl phthalate of 2 to 7 weight % or the like and the liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink comprises a color pigment of 5 to 40 weight % and a solvent of the remaining weight % in addition to the aforementioned ingredients.
The nitrocellulose serves to adjust a hardness of the resin ingredient so as to increase its hardness, but since the hardness of the resin in itself is relatively high, the print pattern disadvantageously fails to be transferred while it is smoothly extended due to a shortage of the extensibility of the ink. With the print pattern being fully not extended, it cannot be closely adhered to the objective body along the surface thereof, which causes the portion of the print pattern to be not adhered thereto so that a pinhole or pinholes are formed therein.
As aforementioned, the dry ink which forms the print pattern provided on the pattern-transferring film retrieves its adhesive property by being dissolved by an activator. The present applicant has proposed an activator composite having a fundamental ingredient of alkyd resin suitably used for dissolving the dry ink on the pattern-transferring film having the print pattern printed thereon by the printing ink having a fundamental ingredient of alkyd (see JP8-238897 or Japanese Patent Application Laying Open No. 238,897/1996). This activator composite comprises a resin ingredient having an alkyd resin as a fundamental component, a solvent and a plasticizer and the resin ingredient is composed of a short-oil alkyd resin having a cellulose acetate butyrate (cellulose acetobutyrate) added thereto.
The cellulose acetate butyrate in this activator composite is softer than the nitrocellulose which is one of the ingredients of the aforementioned ink, but harder than the short-oil alkyd resin which is another resin ingredient of the ink and serves to activate the dry ink so as to provide to the ink a full softness enough to extend the print pattern on the pattern-transferring film following a surface of fine roughness of the objective body while maintaining a hardness of certain degree and an apparent dryness of the alkyd resin even though the ink in itself is short of extensibility. In addition thereto, the cellulose acetate butyrate of the activator composite has a lower hygroscopicity and therefore serves to prevent a coated film of the print pattern transferred onto the objective body from being floated off or removed out of the surface of the objective body due to bubbles because of no absorption of water by the printing ink. Thus, the activator composite including the cellulose acetate butyrate can reduce the disarrangement of the transferred pattern due to the partial dissolution of the ink or the shortage of the dissolution of the ink when the dry ink is treated by the activator and also can reduce the floating off of the coated film due to bubbles. As noted from the foregoing, this activator composite can suitably activate the print pattern on the pattern-transferring film.
However, even though such an activator is used, a plain transferred pattern cannot be sometimes obtained because the disarrangement of the print pattern due to the partial dissolution of the printing ink or the shortage of dissolution of the printing ink cannot be fully prevented and also because there occurs the phenomenon of the transferred pattern being blurred due to the original state of the ink dots broken by the excessive dissolution of the printing ink. Especially, the excessive dissolution of the printing ink occurs when too much amount of the activator composite is coated and is caused to lose a sharpness (clearness) of the pattern transferred to the objective body. Thus, it will be noted that the amount of the activator composite to be coated should not be excessive in view of the sharpness of the transferred pattern.
The activator essentially serves to swell the dry printing ink and restore the adhesive property thereof. Thus, it is difficult to prevent the disarrangement of the transferred pattern due to the partial dissolution of the ink or the shortage of dissolution of the ink and the blurring of the transferred pattern due to the excessive dissolution of the ink only by an improvement on the activator. This has to be solved by improving the property of the ink in itself.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink adapted to effectively prevent a disarrangement or blurring of a transferred pattern by improving a hardness and a stickiness of the ink having a resin ingredient including an alkyd resin as a fundamental component and also adapted to maintain an extensibility of the ink.
It is another object of the invention to provide a pattern-transferring film having a print pattern adapted to effectively prevent a disarrangement or blurring of a transferred pattern by improving a hardness and a stickiness of the ink having a resin ingredient including an alkyd resin as a fundamental component and also adapted to maintain an extensibility of the ink.
It is further object of the invention to provide a liquid pressure pattern-transferred article having a transferred pattern adapted to effectively prevent a disarrangement or blurring of the transferred pattern by improving a hardness and a stickiness of the ink having a resin ingredient including an alkyd resin as a fundamental component and also adapted to be closely adhered onto the article.
It is further object of the invention to provide a method of transferring a print pattern on an objective body wherein a disarrangement or blurring of a transferred pattern can be effectively prevented by improving a hardness and a stickiness of the ink having a resin ingredient including an alkyd resin as a fundamental component and also the print pattern can be effectively closely adhered onto the objective body.
A first feature of the invention is to provide a liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink comprising a resin ingredient including an alkyd resin as a fundamental component, a plasticizer and a pigment, said resin ingredient being composed of a short-oil alkyd resin of 2 to 15 weight % having a cellulose acetate butyrate of 3 to 20 weight % added thereto, said plasticizer having a content of 2 to 4 weight % when the ink is of black and having a content of 0.01 to 2 weight % when the ink is of color other than black.
A second feature of the invention is to provide a liquid pressure pattern-transferring film having a liquid soluble or liquid swelling base film and a print pattern printed on said base film, said print pattern being formed by being printed by using a liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink comprising a resin ingredient including an alkyd resin as a fundamental component, a plasticizer and a pigment, said resin ingredient being composed of a short-oil alkyd resin of 2 to 15 weight % having a cellulose acetate butyrate of 3 to 20 weight % added thereto, said plasticizer having a content of 2 to 4 weight % when the ink is of black and having a content of 0.01 to 2 weight % when the ink is of color other than black.
A third feature of the invention is to provide a liquid pressure pattern-transferred article formed by transferring a print pattern from a pattern-transferring film to an objective body by using a liquid pressure, said print pattern being formed by being printed by using a liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink comprising a resin ingredient including an alkyd resin as a fundamental component, a plasticizer and a pigment, said resin ingredient being composed of a short-oil alkyd resin of 2 to 15 weight % having a cellulose acetate butyrate of 3 to 20 weight % added thereto, said plasticizer having a content of 2 to 4 weight % when the ink is of black and having a content of 0.01 to 2 weight % when the ink is of color other than black.
A fourth feature of the invention is to provide a method of transferring a print pattern from a pattern-transferring film to an objective body by using a liquid pressure, said print pattern being formed by being printed by using a liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink comprising a resin ingredient including as an alkyd resin as a fundamental component, a plasticizer and a pigment, said resin ingredient being composed of a short-oil alkyd resin of 2 to 15 weight % having a cellulose acetate butyrate of 3 to 20 weight % added thereto, said plasticizer having a content of 2 to 4 weight % when the ink is of black and having a content of 0.01 to 2 weight % when the ink is of color other than black and said print pattern which is made dry on said pattern-transferring film being transferred under said liquid pressure after said print pattern is so treated as to be activated by an activator.
A fifth feature of the invention is to provide a method of transferring a print pattern from a pattern-transferring film to an objective body by using a liquid pressure, said print pattern being formed by being printed by using a liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink comprising a resin ingredient including an alkyd resin as a fundamental component, a plasticizer and a pigment, said resin ingredient being composed of a short-oil alkyd resin of 2 to 15 weight % having a cellulose acetate butyrate of 3 to 20 weight % added thereto, said plasticizer having a content of 2 to 4 weight % when the ink is of black and having a content of 0.01 to 2 weight % when the ink is of color other than black and said print pattern being transferred under said liquid pressure before said print pattern is made dry on said pattern-transferring film.
The liquid pressure pattern-transferring or printing ink used for the invention is different from a prior art pattern-transferring ink because the former includes a cellulose acetate butyrate (cellulose acetobutyrate) substituted for a nitrocellulose in a resin ingredient of the prior art liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink.
The cellulose acetate butyrate is harder than the short-oil alkyd resin, but softer than the nitrocellulose. Thus, as the cellulose acetate butyrate is substituted for the nitrocellulose in the resin ingredient of the pattern-transferring ink, the resin ingredient of the ink in itself is made softer, which improves an extensibility of the print pattern on an objective body (a body to which the print pattern is to be transferred) with the result that the disarrangement of the transferred pattern due to the shortage of dissolution of the ink or the partial dissolution of the ink can be prevented.
However, if the amount of the cellulose acetate butyrate to be added is the same as that of the nitrocellulose used in the prior art ink, then there cannot be prevented the blurring of the transferred pattern due to the excessive dissolution of the ink when treated by an activator, which is caused by the ink composite being too soft.
With the content of the plasticizer in the printing ink being of 2 to 4 weight % in case of the black ink and being of 0.01 to 2 weight % in case of the ink of color other than black and with the amount of the plasticizer to be added being less than that of the printing ink including an alkyd resin as a fundamental component, the softness of the ink can be adjusted so that the hardness of the ink can be properly controlled not only when the ink is swelled, but also when it is dry. This serves to prevent the excessive dissolution of the ink so as to improve a sharpness of the transferred pattern.
As noted from the aforementioned features of the liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink of invention, a fundamental principle of the invention is to prevent a shortage of dissolution of the ink and a partial dissolution of the ink while maintaining an extensibility of the printing ink by lowering the hardness of the resin ingredient of the ink in itself and also to prevent an excessive dissolution of the ink after treated by the activator by lowering the content of the plasticizer having a function of adjusting a hardness of the printing ink so as to control the hardness of the entire ink.
The content of the plasticizer is as high as 2 to 4 weight % in case of the black ink and as much lower as 0.01 to 2 weight % in case of the ink of color other than black because the extensibility of the ink including the black pigment is lower than that of the one including the other pigment. If the content of the plasticizer in the black ink is too lower, then the print pattern is more badly extended after it is treated by the activator, which causes the print pattern to be kept from being transferred along the objective body having a complicated rough surface. Thus, the aforementioned contents of the plasticizer in case of the black ink and the other ink can prevent such a bad condition. It will be noted that the black ink has the same amount of the plasticizer to be added as that of the prior art ink in a lower range thereof.